


Hope is Gone

by Batsymomma11



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Superman - All Media Types, Wonder Woman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Good and Evil, Hurt, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-27 20:32:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15692868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Batsymomma11/pseuds/Batsymomma11
Summary: The Justice Lords have taken over the world and Batman leads the resistance. Getting captured, Batman is tortured by the woman he loves. But it isn't just the love they shared that still binds them, it's a memory of Hope and everything they lost. Batman isn't sure he wants to keep fighting, but the resistance has something to say about that.





	Hope is Gone

**Author's Note:**

> One-shot in the universe of the Justice Lords. Not everything is canon.   
> I don't own any of the characters, except for Hope. Story is mine.   
> Enjoy!

                Bruce’s hands had gone numb, his blood slowed to a crawl and pooling in both ankles with spidering needles. Grimacing, he blinked past the burn of sweat that trailed off his feverishly hot skin and surveyed the room.

                Still empty. Still alone.

                A small mercy.

                Bruce swallowed thickly, aware his throat felt stuffed with cotton and that swallowing would not help this sensation. He hadn’t had a drop of water in two days and was bordering on delusion beneath the merciless praise of the sun that slanted overhead from the slatted skylight. Shapes were hazy, shadows horned and imposing. The concrete box he was in smelled thinly of death and urine. By the pressure in his taut bladder, Bruce could only resign himself to adding his own piss to the cloying scent eventually. There was only so long decorum and pride could hold out. Or the human body. It had its limitations just like the Batman.

                As torturing went, this brand of the Lords was at least unique. He hadn’t seen a soul, spoken a word, or seen a scrap of food in a solid thirty-two hours. His stomach had moved past the hunger and gone to the hardened emptiness he wished he wasn’t so familiar with now. But he was. Bruce knew what it was to feel hungry and thirsty and to simply live with it. Everyone did now. Except the Lords.

                Eyes slipping closed with fatigue, Bruce let his mind drift. It invariably went to Diana and held for a small painfully sharp moment. He’d done his best not to think of her these last few days of imprisonment. But a man could only do his best when he was spread so blatantly thin.

                Would she come soon? Would she the one to ultimately gut him, as she’d promised with those lethal cold eyes?

                Bruce bit his lip to stave off the onslaught of memories that would do nothing but hurt him and instead focused on carefully moving his fingers. He winced as they struggled back to life. His legs were a bit more stubborn, as this position forced him up on tip-toe to prevent dislocation of his wrists and it required a great deal more willpower. Sweat poured off his half-stripped frame, lining the ridges of his stomach, soaking the top of his cargos and wetting his sand-darkened boots. Still, Bruce focused on the mindless task of simply moving, trying to distract himself with memories he kept locked within and only for himself.

                He was a shadow of his former self. Thin, only lean muscle remaining, cheeks hollow and eyes darkened by heavy shadows. He hadn’t slept well in years.

                His mouth hardened into a pained line as he rolled his ankles and felt the needles become unbearable. The mind of a man who suffers long-term does strange things. It resorts to dissociation and Bruce felt his slipping so slickly away from the pain. Away from the dust and the death to his memories.

                Hope lived there. His and Diana’s Hope.

                Black hair with so many curls, dark eyes that held secrets and tales, and skin that was flawlessly cream. Ten fingers, ten toes. She’d been such a quiet baby. Even crying she had been gentle, as though she were hesitant to be a bother. A smile ghosted over Bruce’s mouth as he saw that rosebud smile frozen perfectly in his mind, safe and untainted by the wasteland around them. Safe from this.

                “I see nothing to smile about.”

                He jerked hard in his chains at the voice. But it had come to his ears faint and garbled, nearly dream-like. Darkness had already fallen and by the scant sliver of moonlight he could see, it was still early.

                But he’d lost time. Again.

                It would only get worse without food or water.

                “Pathetic,” the voice hissed now, still shrouded in darkness. But she had no reason to hide. Because Bruce would never forget the lilt to her voice. Thinly accented still with warmth of the Greek isles. He braced to see her, to have her step into the light, but nothing prepared him for his gut reaction when she finally did.

                Long legs, encased in golden armor. Body still immeasurably glowing as though she were truly touched by the Gods themselves during her creation. And he supposed she was. Her eyes raked over his form, not an ounce of emotion in them and after several seconds of silent study, he forced his gaze from her own black one and found a spot to stare at on the floor. After all this time, all these years of fighting and sweating and bleeding, it was finally going to end. He was ready.

                “Nothing to say now Bruce?” she spoke softly, boots shifting in the sand. “Not even though you know that I promised to gut you when I had you within my grasp again?”

                Bruce felt his jaw flex, but refused to answer. Nothing he could say would make her any more his again. Nothing he could do would turn back time and bring back Hope or Barry or every other person that had died because of the chaos of the Lords.

                She sighed, the sound resolute and not weary as a mortal’s might. But she was a general, not a mere human and what tired mortals simply irritated Diana and made her all the more fierce. There was a time that inhuman elegance had attracted him to her, had made him feel impossibly loved to simply share her light. But that time died with Hope.

                “I expected more when I found you.”

                Bruce’s eye twitched. She stepped nearer, close enough he could feel her breath on his cheeks. Close enough he could see her chest rise and fall beneath the armor that she wore as a second skin. When her hand snapped out and grabbed his chin to force his gaze to her own, he was unprepared for the venom he saw there now and it took effort not to groan from the pressure in his jaw beneath her fingers.

                “There. Much better. I appreciate when I can look a man in the eyes.”

                He worked his jaw, eyes narrowing on Diana.

                She lifted an elegant black brow, “Still trying to hold out? Still think you have any measure of control now?” her teeth shone white as she smile thinly, “Speak.”

                The command would have had little weight with him. Except that she dug her fingers harder in his jaw forcing his mouth open and out from his lips a humiliating moan of pain. Her gaze turned darker, jaw now flexing beneath the golden color of her skin.

                “Speak.”

                More pain, more noises he wished to God he didn’t make, then he was speaking without thought. Doing anything to stop her from crushing his jaw. “Diana.”

                She released him immediately, then wiped her hands on her leather pleated skirt with disgust. “You’re filthy.”

                He growled, temper thin and weary with his patience, “I’ve been sitting in her for three days chained and sweating my ass off.”

                Diana smirked, “I knew you would speak, given the proper provocation.”

                Bruce snorted, trying for petty annoyance, but struggled with the chains on his wrists as the painful needles became almost unbearable. He needed to move his fingers again. Diana watched him for a moment, eyes flickering in study, red lips pursing, then she moved forward and snapped the chains above his wrists with a casual squeeze.

                Bruce collapsed ungracefully to the sandy floor and coughed when he inhaled a lungful. His legs weren’t strong enough to hold him and even if he could feel his arms, he doubted they would be much help in an escape, let alone a defensive. Diana was Wonder Woman. She was—without equal.

                “There,” she dusted her hands, then squatted to peer down at him, “You used to be so strong. So terrifyingly beautiful. Now look at you,” she scanned his frame, eyes lingering on the heaving of his sweat slicked chest. “You couldn’t hold a candle to the Batman I knew.”

                “I’m not him.”

                “No,” she frowned, “you’re not.”

                Reaching to push the hair off his forehead, she startled him when she pressed a palm to one whiskered cheek and smiled thinly at him. “I came here for information Bruce. Not to reminisce. However, _entertaining_ that might be.”

                 His eyes fluttered for a moment, black spots flickering in his vision, then with a deep breath managed to keep them at bay. “I can’t help you.”

                “Oh, but you can Bruce. You know you can.”

                “No,” he whispered, voice raw from too many days without water.

                “What about a trade?” she offered meekly, hand still warm on his cheek almost tender, “I can give you some water if you give me the location to a resistance encampment. It doesn’t even have to be the main one. Any one you choose. And then you can have some water. I’ll bet your mouth is so dry you would weep for it.”

                She wasn’t far off the mark. But he couldn’t give her what she wanted. He’d been leading the Resistance for the last five years. Battling the Justice Lords with every fiber of his being. And even though he’d finally been captured, he’d been prepared to take the consequences. Humanity deserved that much. Their goal was bigger than any one man. Anyone could be the symbol. It didn’t need to be Bruce Wayne.

                “No, Diana.”

                Her lips thinned and the smile fell. The hand lifted from his cheek and Bruce’s gaze found itself trapped in hers. There was so much beneath the hatred in those charcoal eyes. So much love and memories between them. But that was a different lifetime and this was now.

                “I told Clark I wanted to do this myself.”

                Bruce didn’t doubt it.

                “He was eager to have a go at you,” she smirked now, whatever emotion she’d let through quickly covered again, “But I convinced him to let me go first. I can be kind to you Bruce. If you’d let me.”

                “Kind…” Bruce felt the word come out hoarse.

                “Yes,” she surveyed him, “Or I could hurt you so very much more than what you’re feeling now. Everything we did was simply a warm up. A good way to soften you. But now, you’ll be putty in my hands and I can make this nightmare a child’s game.”

                “Diana—we loved once.”

                Her eyes went colder, “Once.”

                “You don’t have to do this.”

                She straightened, face slipping behind the mask of a calculated warrior. “I don’t. But you’re going to make me, aren’t you?”

                There was a small thread of panic that lanced his middle when he thought of how this might go. He was human after all. And so very Goddamn fragile. But it was nothing compared to the blossoming of pain beneath his ribs when he thought of how this woman had been his wife. This woman, who was about to beat him to within an inch of his life, had been the mother of his child. She’d been his everything. And then—nothing. Just, gone.

                The snap of pain brought him back to focus and his head jerked when the slap broke open his dry lips. Licking at the blood, he watched Diana pace a moment, roll her shoulders then move back in.

                He might have been able to stifle the groan of protest when she pulled him roughly to his weak unused legs, but he couldn’t stop the wrenching gargle of agony when she grabbed his right shoulder and cleanly pulled it from its socket. Fire raced up his shoulder and into the joint and weaved into her body, only to be thrown roughly into the cement wall back by his chains.

                He hit the chains like a ragdoll, dislocated shoulder down and felt the scream try to make its way up his throat. He stamped it down. Diana was on top of him quickly, one hand pressing down on his collar bones to keep him still, the other brandishing a small curved blade.

                “You would suffer for those filthy humans!”

                “I am one!” he barked, his ears wringing when she dug the blade into his chest and drug downwards. More fire, more pain. Bruce kicked his legs, feeling the dump of adrenaline making his movements sluggish but frantic.

                “They would turn their backs on you. Just like they did before. They would kill and rape and pillage over and over again. And yet, you still turned your backs on us for _them_?”

                Bruce cried out when the blade dipped into his belly button and dug downwards. This was it. This was where she gutted him and finished everything. He should feel peace swarming his veins, not terror. Not this blinding sense of panic. What was happening?

                Diana drew near now, her nose brushing his, “Do you feel that my Bruce?”

                He shook his head quickly, eyes watering with humiliating tears, “No.”

                “You reek of fear.”

                He was afraid. Of dying like this. Of dying beneath the woman he loved. But this was something worse. “What—d-did you do?”

                She licked her lips, as if enjoying the scent of him squirming like a terrified child underneath her power. “Scarecrow toxin. It was on the knife.”

                His stomach bottomed out and he could hear his breath roughly scraping past his lungs. “No.”

                “Yes. And if you tell me what I need to know, I will give you the anti-toxin. I will give you some water.”

                Pushing at her, Bruce was surprised when she let him up and he scrambled back against the wall, blinking rapidly past the burning in his eyes. He was bleeding precious fluid, draining himself in his panic but he could do nothing to stop it. Terror enveloped him and Bruce started to moan softly, rocking into himself, ignoring the slippery feel of blood on his stomach and chest to close himself into a cocoon. But Diana was still there.

                She hadn’t left. And this was real.

                But he could hear wailing. His? No. Someone else. A baby. God, there was a baby in here. His baby. His baby was crying. He needed to help her.

                “Hope!” he yelled, stumbling to his feet, clawing against Diana as she stopped him. “Hope!”

                “Bruce,” Diana scolded, but her voice sounded so far away.

                The visceral reaction to hearing Hope’s pained wails made his stomach wrench and his heart pound in his ears. There was a shred of himself that knew none of this was real. His Hope was already gone and had been for five years. She’d died. But with fear toxin raging in his veins he couldn’t stop himself from fighting Diana with everything he had to rush towards the shape of the squalling form in the corner. His feeble attempts at breaking loose from Diana became weaker as the crying grew softer and softer.

                “No!” he screamed, trembling, sobbing now, “I have to save her. I need to go to her. Let me help her Diana. She needs me.”

                “She’s gone Bruce. She needed you a long time ago.”

                “No!” he jerked in her arms, straining to hear the soft whisper of Hope now. She was too quiet, her arms and legs not kicking for someone to help her. She was dying. “Let me help her, please. I’ll do anything.”

                “Anything?” Diana breathed, lips brushing his forehead.

                Bruce looked up at her through blurry eyes, tears making her face look like a painted portrait done in a dream. “God Diana, let me help her. I need to help her.”

                “Tell me the resistance location.”

                Bruce wailed harder, pounding with both fists on Diana’s chest, a scream building in the back of his throat. Hope had gone silent. She’d stopped moving and his heart was splitting in two.

                “No, no, no, no. No, she isn’t gone. No.”

                Diana stiffened beneath him when he sagged into her, unable to hold himself up. His hot cheek pressed into her armor and he sobbed harder, unable to stop himself from wrapping both arms around her middle to hold for dear life.

                “I-I’m s-so sorry Diana. I tried to save her. God,” he moaned, “I didn’t save her.”

                “No,” she whispered, one hand moving to the nape of his neck to rest softly, “You didn’t.”

                “I t-t-tried.”

                “I know.”

                Bruce gripped her harder, willing Diana to see how sorry he was. Willing her to let him go so he could run to Hope and hold her again. She was scared. She needed him.

                Darkness flickered in his vision and Bruce started to hiccup as the tears slowed and his stomach rolled with nausea. “Kill me. Please.”

                Diana’s fingers were stroking his hair, her touch light and not nearly painful enough. She needed to be finishing what she promised. Why wasn’t she killing him? Why didn’t she let him simply die? He wanted to die. God, he wanted to be with Hope again. With Damian and Tim and Alfred. With Barry. He didn’t want to be here anymore.

                “Bruce,” Diana whispered against the shell of his ear, “It’ alright.”

                “No,” he moaned, “It’s never going to be alright. Kill me. Let me be with Hope.”

                Abruptly, something scorching and rigid grabbed him by the scruff and ripped him off Diana’s chest. He screamed at the flare of pain when his head slammed into the concrete. Vision became almost impossible and darkness swarmed then returned. Bruce was too far gone on toxin to realize that Diana had left. He was too intent on getting to Hope still. When he crawled to the corner and began picking at the sand as if to find a bundle of blankets, it never occurred to him that he should have been stopped. It never occurred to him the force of the being who’d torn him off of her had been furious and _alien_.

                Desperation flooding his veins, Bruce felt the sob break the seam of his lips when he couldn’t find Hope. Sand fell through his fingers but there was no sign of his baby.

                “I’ve been waiting for this for a very long time.”

                Bruce cried out when the singeing heat grabbed his dislocated arm and tugged him roughly to his feet.

                “No, let me find her.”

                “She’s gone.”

                Bruce blinked, suddenly aware that he wasn’t speaking to Diana. The voice was deep and heated, not an ounce of mercy. His eyes struggled to focus on the face that loomed above him, though he knew it was Clark who had him now. But the face never became focused. He could only see the blood smeared like warpaint on his cheeks and the red glow of eyes that burned him.

                Bruce hissed when a thumb brushed the column of his throat and pressed tightly to his throbbing pulse. “Did you miss me, friend?”

                Bruce’s head lolled to the side and he struggled for words, past the ball of overwhelming grief. This man had been his friend yes. This man, whom he’d held so dear had been the godfather of his children. Had been the one he’d run to when he needed advice or someone to listen. 

                “I like seeing you like this. Taken down to your baser self. Naked and frightened.”

                “No, please Clark,” Bruce found himself begging, scrabbling suddenly at the hands that were wrapping around his throat. He fought, but it was weak, so very weak and when Clark pressed him into the ground his glowing red eyes burning into him, Bruce screamed in terror.

                “Fuck!” Clark growled, shaking him roughly, making Bruce’s head bounce on the sandy floor. “You pissed on me.”

                Bruce groaned, mumbling things incoherently, blood trailing down his throat to coat his roiling stomach. There was no room for humiliation. There was no room for anything but his death and Bruce leaned into it, pressing his face into Clark’s cheek when Clark drew near again, a vicious glare on his mouth.

                “You fucking little waste of space. I should snap your neck right now.”

                Bruce hummed in approval, “Please.”

                Clark laughed, glowing red eyes smiling, a demon’s face in place of his friend, “Like that do you?”

                “God Clark, end me. Please. Make it stop.”

                “I need the location of the encampment.”

                Bruce started mumbling again, his words buried in Clark’s shoulder as the bigger man tore him off the ground. Fear was so thick in his veins he couldn’t function. He was going to pass out soon. He might even die. God, he hoped so.

                “You will give me what I want Bruce, or so help me.”

                Bruce felt his fingers being broken when Clark squeezed, but all that slipped from him was a strange mewling noise in the back of his throat. “Water. I need—water.”

                Clark growled, “Information.”

                “Dying.”

                Clark shook him, hard enough to rattle his teeth, “I’ll break the other hand.”

                “Dying,” Bruce repeated, eyes rolling into the back of his head. He wasn’t using his legs at all anymore. Clark had one arm wrapped around his middle, shaking him around like he was a doll and Bruce could do nothing about it. When he opened his eyes, he saw a red-eyed demon hissing a stream of curses at him and he wailed like a child.

                “No!”

                “Give me what I want!”

                “God, let it end. Let me die. P-please,” Bruce whispered, clinging to the demon even as he knew it would end him.

                “Useless. Worthless,” the demon roared, grinding his fingers into Bruce’s broken hand, “All you’re good for now is a plaything. Should I hand you over to my men so they can amuse themselves?” the voice taunted mercilessly, “You aren’t so far gone that you’ve lost that uncanny beauty. They’d make a feast of you. They’d tear you up and spit you out. Do you want that?”

                Bruce shook his head quickly, fear clogging his nose till he was panting into the demon, struggling to suddenly push away. He didn’t want _that._ “Please.”

                “Please give you to them? Please let them fuck you till your last pathetic breath leaves your body? It can be arranged. I can make it happen.”

                “N-no. Please no.”

                “Tell. Me.”

                Bruce stared into the red eyes, his heart pounding so hard that he didn’t think it could last much longer. How could it? How could the human body keep going when it shouldn’t? He should be dead by now. He was jolted when the demon lifted him to his toes, then forced his mouth open with a claw.

                “Should I cut out your tongue?”

                Drool slipped from his lips and down his chest. Bruce shook his head weakly.

                “No? You still have all your teeth. I can take those too,” the claw became brutal as it pierced his cheek, “I’ll start with the molars.”

                Bruce fought in earnest now, one last surge of adrenaline helping to fuel his movements. But they were far too weak for the man of steel. Far too little against the leader of the Justice Lords. The sucking sensation of being rid of one of his teeth immediately made vomit come up the back of his throat. A hand clamped over his throat and squeezed.

                “Don’t you dare.”

                Bruce gagged, struggled for a breath.

                “Tell me what I want to know and I will kill you. I will make the suffering end.”

                The temptation was great. So very great. Bruce grasped at the last shreds of his willpower and weakly shook his head. “No.”

                Clark’s face was so close their noses brushed and Bruce shivered away from the contact, fear still thick and heady, drugging him to the point of madness. His skin felt tight and yet it crawled and he struggled to draw in a breath that didn’t smell overwhelmingly like blood. His blood. 

                “Then suffer,” the demon whispered, voice strangely tight with emotion, “Suffer and know that I enjoy it. I feed off of it.”

                Bruce blinked at the face, the face that should bring hope and not death. The one that he’d loved not that long ago, as his brother in arms, then everything blessedly went black.

 

 *****

                “Bruce, wake up.”

                He couldn’t open his eyes. They felt taped shut.

                “Nnnhggghh,” Bruce tried to answer.

                “Bruce,” the voice at his ear was familiar but he couldn’t place it. He didn’t know where he was, or what was happening. There was something being pressed into his shoulder, a needle? A sharp sting of pain, then fire rushed beneath his skin and started to boil him from inside to out. He arched and cried out, gripping blindly in the blackness for something to hold onto.

                His hands were gripped by another pair. Calloused, rough and worn. The scent of cinnamon and sweat flooded his nostrils and Bruce was suddenly and abruptly very much aware.

                “Jason,” he wheezed, grasping at the hands, emotion clogging his ravaged throat. He remembered. He remembered where he was and what had happened. Everything hurt. Nothing was right. He wanted to die still. “Jason,” he tried again, finally peeling his eyes open to see a pair of green ones angrily narrowed on him.

                “That’s right old man, open your eyes. We need to move.”

                “I—I can’t.”

                Jason growled, wrapping an arm around his shoulders, “Yes, you can. I didn’t break into this joint and risk life and limb just so you could be a quitter.”

                “Jason,” Bruce gasped when his fingers tried to flex and the broken bones ground, “Let me die.”

                Jason recoiled, tugging harder at his mentor and father, “Fuck you. Get up.”

                Bruce panted through the pain, letting Jason force him to his feet, sluggishly leaning so heavily into his son he wasn’t sure how the younger could hold them both. He remembered a time when Bruce had been the one to save his Robins. When Bruce had been the stronger of the two. Now, Bruce was broken. No, shattered. And he would never be whole again.

                “Took us too long to find you,” Jason managed after the first few minutes of toting around a severely injured Bruce. His eyes were tight in the predawn light and Bruce wondered what he was thinking.

                They moved in a haze. The fear toxin appeared to be gone. Either by leaving on its own, or by anti-toxin, he couldn’t be certain, but Bruce was grateful. Still, the haze felt numbing and Bruce wasn’t sure how long it would last before the pain of his injuries became unbearable. With whatever Jason had injected him with, he was able to help move himself, but only a little. He imagined it wouldn’t be long before everything became sharp and poignant again.

                More than anything, he wanted water. He needed something to wet his painfully dry mouth.

                When they reached a sand buggy, Jason wasted no time in getting Bruce buckled into the front seat. Hopping into the driver’s side, he roared the engine to life and floored it into the abyss of sandy slopes and peaks. Bruce let his head loll and his eyes slipped closed, but he could still hear the engine in the background. He could still hear his son whispering words that were half prayers, half curses. It made his chest ache to know that he would cause even more pain when he died.

                Bruce must have blacked out during their drive because when he opened his eyes again, he was within the green canvas of a tent, an IV already running in his arm, a thin blanket draped over his naked and freshly wiped clean body. He didn’t feel like he’d been given a stay of execution, but rather a continuance. He could still feel death rattling in his lungs and in the hollow of his belly.

                “You’re awake.”

                Dick was at his side now. Jason passed out in the corner slumped over in a chair, blood still spattered on his cheeks and nose. Bruce felt love and pain mingle in his chest as tears burned his eyes.

                “Hey,” Dick whispered, drawing closer, grapping Bruce’s unbroken hand with the IV, “Don’t do that. He’s OK. We’re all OK.”

                “No,” Bruce croaked, fingers spasming under the others, “I-I broke.”

                “You didn’t tell them.”

                Bruce shook his head, even though Dick hadn’t asked a question. It had been a statement. They both knew he wouldn’t give up the resistance and that he was speaking of his mental state. He felt like a shattered tea cup, irreversibly ruined.

                Dick, arguably the most affectionate of the family, pressed into Bruce and rested his forehead on Bruce’s. The contact was welcome and grounding. They remained like that, Bruce silently crying as his son comforted him in the only way he knew how. So much had been taken from him. So much had been ripped and shredded and he didn’t know how to keep going like this. He didn’t know how to keep fighting when their cause was futile. They would never win.

                  “Don’t give up Bruce.”

                Bruce choked on a sob, squeezing his eyes tightly closed, “I want to Dick. I think it-it might be time.”

                “No,” Dick said softly, certainty making his voice level and strong.

                Bruce looked up at the familiar bright blue eyes studying him and shook his head, “You can lead them now. They don’t need me.”

                “They do. You’re the Batman. I’m not. They need you. And we’re going to win.”

                “Dick, I--.”

                “Hey old man,” Jason yawned loudly, sitting up in his chair, “Glad to see your awake.”

                Bruce smiled weakly, wanting to wipe the tears from his face but unable to, “Thank you.”

                Jason watched him a moment, then shrugged a shoulder, “You would have done the same.”

                A moment later Oliver was striding into the tented room and peering down at Bruce with a lifted brow. “There’s our fearless leader. We’ve got news from the outeremer resistance.”

                “What sort of news?” Bruce asked, a heavy sigh slipping from his lips. He was tired again and wanted desperately to close his eyes. He wanted to slip away into nothingness and join Hope, but there were two young men sitting on either side of him who would have something to say about that. He could feel them anchoring him as easily as if he’d been nailed to the floor. And it was a—painfully welcome sensation. It had been a long time since he’d felt love drawing him rather than duty.

                “A team claiming to be the Justice League just walked through a portal straight into their encampment.”

                Bruce blinked, “What?”

                “They’ll be here in two days.”

                “The Justice League,” his voice sounded thin and frightened, but he couldn’t stop it.

                “Yeah,” Oliver nodded, his eyes shadowed, “And they want to speak to the leader of the resistance.”


End file.
